


The Blood Of The Shameless

by AuroraKant



Series: Whumptober2020 [21]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: (not sexual), Angst, Blood, Dick Grayson is Damian Wayne's Parent, Gen, Hugo Strange is a Creep, Humiliation, Hurt Dick Grayson, I Am Sorry, Mind Control, Murder, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Open Ending, Pain, Protective Damian Wayne, Protective Jason Todd, Protective Slade Wilson, They need hugs, Violence, Vomiting, all of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: “You might be wondering what is going on, my esteemed hero. And well, it is rather simple. My dear friend Jonathan Arkham has this Professor in his employ. Milo, a clever old bastard, Oedipus complex if you ask me, but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right? And he got us this new little toy of his – a drug, or poison if you will, that allows the person administrating it perfect control over the body of the… recipient, the user, only to kill him after thirty-six hours, not leaving a trace.”Fuck. Dick Grayson was fucked.Or: In the clutches of Hugo Strange Dick learns what horror really means.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Hugo Strange
Series: Whumptober2020 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948651
Comments: 30
Kudos: 183
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Blood Of The Shameless

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!   
> Welcome back to another edition of the I Am Hurting Dick Grayson Show!  
> I hope you are enjoying yourself!!!
> 
> Comments, Kudos and Bookmarks are EXTREMELY appreciated! <3<3<3

There was a haze laying over the world. It made everything blurry and kind of hard to focus on.

Dick was attempting to get his eyes to stay firmly trained on the face in front of him, but no matter how much he tried to concentrate, he couldn’t help himself. His eyes wandered. First down the face, then over the suit jacket. It didn’t take long for them to stray even further, focusing on the single bulb that illuminated the room, or the door that was clearly locked.

But Dick didn’t want to look at the door.

He wanted to look into the face of his kidnapper. Abductor – Dick was twenty-five and no longer a kid. He didn’t get _kid_ napped, he got abducted like a sophisticated adult vigilante.

The final domino finally fell, and a switch flipped: Drugged. Dick was drugged.

That explained quite a bit, the haze for one, or why his brain was even funnier than usual. Well, that sucked. Dick tested his restrains and his arms would barely move, soft noodles hanging uselessly from the side of his body.

Not that the bounds holding him budged either, the chair he was tied to not giving him any wiggle room or opportunity to escape.

He was truly a sitting duck. Hah, Dick the sitting duck. Dick – Duck.

He couldn’t help himself, the giggle spilling out of his mouth and down his suit – his suit! He was Nightwing right now. And now he was a Nightwing who was throwing up. Dick hadn’t even noticed that nausea was plaguing him, until the hilarity of his own wit had forced him to laugh.

Now a terrible, terrible stench joined the horrible crescendo of things that were too complex for his drug muddled brain to understand.

For some reason he was still laughing. Why was he still laughing?

The person in front of him didn’t seem to think that it was all that funny, with Nightwing sitting bound on a chair, laughing and throwing his ass off.

Dick saw a blurry motion from the corner of his eye, but that was the only warning he got before the fist connected with his left cheek. His teeth cut into the inside of his mouth, blood joining the aftertaste of acid and sick.

He had tasted worse – but that didn’t mean, that the taste wasn’t so nasty Dick gagged again.

“Fuck, boss, what did you shoot him up with? That doesn’t seem good!”

They were talking. Talking about him, about Nightwing. And apparently there was more than one person in the room with him. Dick forced himself to breathe through the blood and the fuzziness, to breathe through the excitement pooling in his veins and the joy dancing in his heart. Yeah, now that he knew what he was searching for, his eyes found another shadowy blur in the corner of the room.

A vaguely human shaped blur.

“I got him some of the new product Mr. Arkham offered during our last meeting. The Penguin and Black Mask swear by this stuff. And if I read the manuals right, the exciting part of the trip should be over for him soon.”

“Wha-?”

Dick’s tongue was heavy and uncooperative, only allowing one syllable to escape. It was hard to listen to what they had to say, the nausea bubbling in his stomach intensifying, a headache building up inside his skull.

There was still something soft when Dick looked at his surroundings, as if his brain failed to recognize the edges the world usually offered, but with the confusion threatening to drown him, Dick wasn’t too keen on trying to figure out what exactly was going on here.

“Oh, look at him… he is already coming back to himself.”

There was something sinister hidden in the voice, and when Dick glanced towards the shadowy figure, he could have sworn the shadows were growing talons, clawing their way towards Dick’s heart.

_Drugged_.

He was drugged.

There was no need to worry, and… and… okay, maybe there was a need to worry, but right now the drugs still felt good – even if they upset his stomach – and Batman and Co. still had plenty of time to save him.

Oh, how he hated being saved… but looking at the shadows that crawled towards him, at the distorted noise of the men talking, and Nightwing not being able to understand them, he had the vague feeling that being saved would be great, just this once.

Someone was grabbing his hair – Dick should, he should… lazily his eyes found the face in front of him, the man so much more clear-cut than he had been minutes – seconds? Hours? – before. He had a stubble, Dick noted, and horrible breath. But maybe that was just the vomit collecting on the floor, and in the cracks of his Nightwing suit.

That would be a bitch to clean later. Alfred would kill him.

If these guys and their novelty drugs didn’t do it first.

“Look at me!”

_Loud_.

He was so loud. And Dick was already looking at him!

“I a- I am… loo’in’”

His words came out so slurred, his voice coach would be ashamed of him. And wasn’t it weird that Dick had had a voice coach as a kid? Bruce had hired someone to train the circus out of Dick and the Gotham into Robin. It had been both a horrible and exhilarating time as a kid.

Dick was no longer a kid. He could slur his words if he wanted to.

“And now I want you to focus and listen.”

If Dick had more control of his body – and he hadn’t – he would have rolled his eyes, but as it was, he only tried to convey his tiredness through the blank look in his eyes. He wasn’t quite capable of anything more.

His head felt clearer, he could tell that much, but the rest of his body still seemed as cut off as it had been those first few moments after waking up. His arms didn’t move when Dick wanted them to, and his head only lolled when the man in front of him let go of his hair.

Not good.

Dick had the weird feeling that that was not good.

Crook 1 turned around, and Dick had once more forgotten that there was someone else in the room with them:

“Are you sure whatever you did worked? He just looks completely out of it to me.”

Now the shadow grew taller and taller, stepping out of the corner and into the flimsy light the single bulb offered:

“Oh, Professor Milo assured me that that means that it is working. Hello, Nightwing, long time no see.”

Doctor Hugo Strange was standing in front of him, all goatee and pinstripe suit. The situation just went from not good to rather shitty.

Especially since Strange was grinning, and Dick couldn’t even really glance in his direction anymore. He had been able to do that only moments before, but not it seemed impossibly exhausting to force his eyes to move away from the face of crook 1.

It was as if… it was as if…

“You might be wondering what is going on, my esteemed hero. And well, it is rather simple. My dear friend Jonathan Arkham has this Professor in his employ. Milo, a clever old bastard, Oedipus complex if you ask me, but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right? And he got us this new little toy of his – a drug, or poison if you will, that allows the person administrating it perfect control over the body of the… recipient, the user, only to kill him after thirty-six hours, not leaving a trace.”

That was… that was quite the heavy pill to swallow. Dick tried to brace himself against his restrains, his body not even moving an inch. His entire body, his arms and legs and even his chest and head… they all remained perfectly still, perfectly relaxed.

But Strange didn’t notice Dick’s struggle, his voice just as gone as his control over anything else was, and so the evil bastard just kept on monologuing, fulfilling every villain cliché along the way:

“At least that’s what it says on the tin. I have it in good faith, that this drug – Milo called it the God Maker – as I said Oedipus complex – works. Your head should be pretty clear by now, yes?”

Strange was smiling, his face swimming in and out of focus. It was hard to look at someone, when not even his eyes really did anything besides stare into the void. Apparently Dick’s body was still working – he was still breathing and blinking and his heart hadn’t stopped yet either – but no matter how loud Dick yelled in the confinements of his own mind, how much he strained against invisible chains… nothing changed on the outside.

“That is something else the little sadist worked into this miracle drug: An added layer of horror, knowing that you will die, that it will be painful, and that you will be forced to do horrible things… because your head is clear while your body is mine. _Cut him free_.”

The last bit wasn’t directed towards him, crook 1 moving even before Strange had finished his speech. The rope keeping him bound fell away, and to no one’s surprise, Dick stayed firm on the chair. He… Dick _tried_ to stand up. He really did. He was pounding his imaginary fists against an imaginary wall, but nothing he did seemed to change… anything.

Nothing.

He was fucked.

He was utterly, utterly fucked, and it wouldn’t even be him who would be forced to live with the consequences. Strange had signed Dick’s death warrant when he administrated the drug, which meant… which meant that Dick would leave his family behind once more. That they would be forced to survive his death again. Only this time Dick would do horrible, _evil_ things because… because there was no way in hell, Strange wouldn’t use Nightwing’s body to his full capacity.

“But first… some tests. Nightwing – to your knees.”

It was an entirely weird sensation to feel his body move without Dick wanting it to. His knees sank towards the floor, his muscles loose and relaxed as they followed a command given by a horrible man. Dick was kneeling in front of the bastard like a pet, and his body acted as if that was normal, as if it was meant to be.

Dick really wanted the ability to throw up out of his own will again.

“Kiss my shoes. Oh, and Nightwing dear, smile when you do it. You have a beautiful smile. It would be a shame if the world couldn’t see it – If I couldn’t see it.”

Dick was smiling his soft smile, the smile that had been reserved for Damian and Bruce and Barbara and Kory and Tim. Now it was perverted, Dick’s lips dancing over the shoes of a monster, hatred burning bright in his heart.

Strange would pay for this.

Dick would make him pay – he just had to believe in that.

The leather tasted salty, the smell of old socks and dog shit heavy in Dick’s nose. He would never forget that smell, the feeling of something being wrong so strong he wanted to curl up and cry. Instead he kissed the top of Strange’s slipper again. And again. And again.

“Stop.”

Dick hated the relief that flooded his veins, when his body finally sat up, knees still firmly placed on the cold stone floor. But Strange wasn’t just satisfied with humiliating Dick, no, that was something Dick had known from the first moment onwards his brain had decided that logical thinking was more important than hilarious jokes.

“Nightwing, kill Johnson over there. And please keep that smile going strong. I like it – it is so tender.”

_You sick motherfucker of a bastard!_ Dick wanted to yell.

He didn’t.

Instead his body unfurled, all of Nightwing’s grace evident, even without Dick being the one to control the body.

“Boss? Mr. Strange? What do you mean-?”

Apparently, crook 1 didn’t like this order any more than Dick did. But the man was just as weak as Dick was, Strange smiling as Nightwing prowled in Johnson’s direction:

“I have a Doctor, Johnson. You would have done better remembering that.”

That was the last thing Johnson heard before Dick’s fist connected with his jaw, sending the man onto the floor. Dick didn’t wait for a comeback, not giving the man even a chance to defend himself – No, this wasn’t Dick. This was Strange controlling him.

It wasn’t Dick, who hit and hit and hit. It weren’t his fists that got coated in blood and bone and soft tissue. It wasn’t Dick, who was killing a stranger. It wasn’t Dick, who was losing himself in the violence and danger.

It was Strange. It had to be.

_It couldn’t be Dick_.

His fists connected again and again with the soft flesh underneath him, crook 1 – Johnson, Johnson! _Johnson_ – long ago stopping in his desperate attempts to protect himself. The body beneath him was still. Silent. _Dead_.

Dick really wanted to throw up.

He didn’t.

Instead… instead, once there was no longer any doubt that Johnson could have survived, Nightwing stopped, standing over the corpse as if nothing had happened. As if there weren’t rivers of blood running down his suit and hands.

Strange was delighted, grinning. Dick wanted to bury his fists in the smug face, wanted to hurt Strange, just as he had been forced to hurt Johnson. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Dick was a player character, unable to do anything without a direct command.

He was even unable to avert his gaze from the brutal mess his own hands had created. He couldn’t even stop himself from staring at the destroyed body on the floor.

So, that’s what Nightwing could do, when Dick didn’t hold himself back. So, that was the power of a Bat without restrains.

Dick would love to forget that knowledge, to burn the blood from his skin.

But he couldn’t.

“This was great! Not even a flinch! Your smile didn’t even waver! Oh, and we still have thirty-three hours left to test just how much this God Maker can do. Just how powerful it truly is… Nightwing, thank me for unlocking your true potential.”

“Thank you, Dr. Strange, for showing me what I am truly capable off.”

His own voice… it was his own voice uttering these horrible words, his own voice betraying every part of his body and soul and being. No. This was… this was disgusting. This had to stop – he couldn’t bear being a prisoner in his own body any longer, couldn’t deal with the horror and guilt and dread fighting in his heart.

Stop.

_He needed this to stop._

It didn’t.

“Now, that was a beautiful presentation. It is time the real test begins: Down the hall to your right, Nightwing, there is a room with twenty armed and trained men. Kill them all. Oh, and keep on smiling.”

Dick’s body moved, passing Strange before opening the door leading to the hallway. He didn’t even hesitate. Not one muscle in Dick’s entire body strained against the order, no matter how much Dick yelled and cried and raged. Not one corner of his mouth twitched, not even when Dick begged.

He was no longer in control.

He was just here to watch.

To watch as his body opened the door to the breakroom of Strange’s guards, smiling before he started to move. Smiling his private smile, before he started to kill.

Dick only wished he could close his eyes.

His time by Strange’s side was running out. Dick knew that – he couldn’t wait for it.

The man in question liked to remind him of his impending death, but Dick would have known even without the ticking clock as a constant reminder.

He could feel his body break.

There was a bullet hole in his shoulder, and a stab wound to his thigh. Bruises littered his entire body, and he hadn’t consumed anything in the thirty hours since Strange had injected his killer drug, Milo’s killer drug. No food. No water. Nothing. He hadn’t slept either, his body running on fumes and yet never stopping.

_Dick just wanted it to stop_.

Strange had him kill these twenty men, and afterwards Strange had asked Dick to thank him for letting him kill again. Dick could only see blood wherever he looked, and no matter what he did, he knew it would follow him to whatever came after _this_. After the horror he was currently living. After the horror he would soon die for.

Whatever happened to him after he died would be nothing good.

Not after what he had done today.

There had been other tests after that, more violence, more humiliation, but by now Dick was running on empty. Not even some fucked up drug could cancel that out, could force his body to move like it once had.

Strange had watched that new development with a frown on his face, before his expression had settled on something cruel. Dick had known that nothing good would come of that, and now, kneeling next to Strange’s legs, he knew he had been right.

Because Strange… well, Strange had decided that the perfect end for Nightwing would be to have him fight one of his own. To either kill a member of his family, or to be killed by them – dying either way. The man – _the psychopath_! – had dropped hints regarding his location in Gotham and now they were waiting.

Waiting for an end so horrible that what was left of Dick’s spirit only begged for it to stop.

He had done a whole lot of begging in his mind recently.

But soon… soon it would be over.

Dick wasn’t sure if he was happy about that or not. He just knew it to be the truth.

His head was leaning against Strange’s thigh, his face serene as a foreign, disgusting hand combed through his hair. He was positioned like a lap dog, like a pet, and Strange had made sure that Nightwing looked as if he was enjoying it.

Dick would never smile again.

( _hah, and wasn’t that just an empty promise?_ )

His entire body was relaxed, even as the blood of his victims mixed with his own, even as his own life dripped away with each passing minute.

Some part of Dick – every part of Dick – had stopped fighting, had given up.

He would die, and Strange, the monster, would force him to take a part of his family with him.

The doors banged open with a loud clang. Dick didn’t look up – he hadn’t been ordered to. But even without looking he knew who was standing in the doorway: Jason, the sound of his guns memorable, Damian, because Dick would always recognize his son, and… and Slade?

What was Slade doing here?

Now Dick wanted to look, wanted to confirm that the mercenary was here to save him. But that would mean disobeying the orders Strange had given him – that would mean being in control.

Dick didn’t move.

“What the fuck did you do to Nightwing, you bastard?”

Jason, that was Jason’s voice, hot with fury and anger and rage. It was the best thing Nightwing had heard in two days. It felt like salvation, even though Dick couldn’t keep the worry from gnawing at his stomach.

He would have to fight his brother.

“Red Hood – silent! We talked about this!”

Ah, yeah, Slade. So, Dick’s ears hadn’t betrayed him when he heard the telltale sound of the heavy boots moving through the door.

“Deathstroke, Robin, Red Hood – I must say that this is quite surprising. I counted on the Bat, to be honest.”

“Unhand Nightwing, you heathen! And then prepare to rot in Arkham!”

His baby. His Damian. Dick wanted to crawl towards Damian and press him against his chest, checking for injuries and bruises. Dick wanted to send Damian away… there was no need for him to see what would follow.

“Oh, I am happy to see Arkham again. And you want Nightwing back? That can be arranged.”

The hand in Dick’s hair tightened, and his head didn’t resist, when Strange pulled it back. It was easier for the man to whisper disgusting things into Dick’s ear, while making it look wrong and sick and painful to watch for their audience, with Dick’s head caught in Strange’s grasp like that.

Dick never wanted to smile again ever in his life.

“Nightwing, dear. I want you to go and kill these intruders. Go for the small one first. Robin. They won’t count on that. Don’t stop. No matter what they do – don’t stop fighting.”

No.

**NO!**

_No…_

Yes. Dick’s body unfurled from its humiliating position on the floor, turning towards his saviors – his damnation – for the very first time. They looked roughed up, as if they had been fighting their way inside. They probably had.

Dick hadn’t known that there were still guards left after Strange had him kill one after the other.

Jason was missing his helmet, only the mask protecting his identity, Damian’s hood had seen better days as well, and Dick could see the holes where bullets had managed to connect and pierce Slade’s uniform, not that the man would be slowed down by that.

Not that either of them would have stopped, if that meant giving up on Dick.

His body was smiling when he walked towards the group, his own mind just a fragmented sobbing mess. He couldn’t kill Damian. Someone needed to stop him. Someone needed to make him stop.

But only Strange could. Strange or the drug killing him in only a few short hours.

“Hey, boy wonder, stay back. We need to make sure you are… not contaminated.”

Slade’s voice sounded like always, but the part of Dick that was still lucid, that was still forced to watch, realized what the man was doing: checking for traps. Because, of course, all of them knew that what had just transpired was too easy. That Hugo would never simply let Dick go, that there had to be something else tying Dick down, and nailing the smile on his face.

Dick didn’t stay back. No, he did quite the opposite actually.

He unholstered his escrima sticks and leaped past Slade, past Jason – both men who would have been able to defeat Dick in his beaten and bloody state – onto Damian. Onto Robin. _Onto his son_.

The first hit connected with Damian’s side, sending the boy stumbling back, a shout of surprise escaping him. Robin was well trained, he recovered fast, but not before Dick managed to break at least one rib with another well-placed hit from his escrima.

It happened so fast.

Dick just wanted it to stop.

_It didn’t stop_.

The fight continued and Dick lost count of the number of times he was forced to hurt Damian.

Damian was underneath him now, Dick having lost his weapons at some point, his arm raised to beat his bloody fist into the face of his child again, when finally… finally something happened. The Red Hood barreled into him with the force of a truck, sending both of them tumbling onto the floor.

Dick was unable to rest, to let his body recuperate – because Strange had ordered him to never stop fighting. His legs shot up, twisting around Jason’s neck, panic and rage burning bright in the eyes of his little brother. If Jason was slightly smaller, or Dick had more leverage, he would have broken Jason’s neck as he wretched the larger body to the side just with the strength of his leg muscles. As it was… he hurt Jay, knocking him out.

He felt the familiar burn of ligaments tearing and muscles burning, racing up his legs. All signs that he should have stopped long ago. But that meant nothing for this killer machine he had been turned into, it meant nothing for the order that forced him to stumble into Damian’s direction once more.

Maybe they were speaking.

Maybe there was shouting.

But Dick could only hear his own desperate sobbing over the thumbing in his ears, Strange’s words echoing in his mind: “I want you to kill those intruders. Go for the small one first.”

Damian hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor, but Dick could see his eyes flicker beneath his mask. Just unconscious, not dead. Just hurt, not killed. Dick had not yet brought death upon his child. The shame of hurting him was already burning bright enough.

But that would soon change.

Where was Slade? Why could Dick only see his brothers on the floor? Why was…?

His kick connected with Damian’s side, drawing a ragged breath from the boy. Dick wanted to beg for forgiveness immediately… but he couldn’t. He could only watch as his body bend down, hands closing around a throat so preciously small. So fragile.

He pressed and pressed and pressed and…

“Stop! Nightwing, I am ordering you to stop!”

Strange’s voice sounded panicked, but Dick didn’t care over the roar of relief that flooded his veins. His hands stopped clawing into the soft flesh of Damian’s jaw, they stopped hurting his family and friends.

He could finally stop.

When he glanced – _and it was his own decision! He had made his own eyes move!_ – into the direction of Strange’s voice, he could see why. Slade was holding Strange in an uncomfortable looking chokehold, gun pressed firmly against his head.

Dick couldn’t see Slade’s face, but he knew what would happen before it did.

Dick was too tired to care.

Strange smiled:

“So, you can let me go. I think there is a cell in Arkham waiting for me.”

“No. There is only hell.”

Slade pressed the trigger of his Glock; the bang so loud Dick could feel himself sway. Or maybe he was swaying because another death, another shower of blood, added to the paint coloring this room red. Or maybe he was falling because Strange’s control was finally gone – the man dead on the floor with a hole in his head – but the drug was still killing him.

The last thirty-four hours were still killing him.

He let himself fall.

He let his body fail.

Only that suddenly hands were touching him, were checking for his pulse, were cradling his head, patting his hair. He could make out voices, as if through a storm, their words barely making any sense:

“Fuck… you okay, kid?”

“I will be fine, Todd, we need to ensure Richard gets medical attention.”

“Did Red Robin give you the antidote?”

“Yeah, but there is only a fifty percent success rate… and his body is fucked either way- I mean look at the-“

“Give it to me!”

Dick was too tired, too broken along the seems to try to decipher the words. But he knew these voices. Jason, Damian, Slade. They had come to recue him. And he had only brought them pain. He would only hurt them even further.

He was sorry. Oh God, he was so sorry. It was all his fault.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so---”

He was sobbing. Dick was pretty sure he was sobbing. But thinking – fuck, exciting – got harder and harder. He just wanted the pain to stop.

“Don’t be daft, Richard. There is nothing you have to apologize for.”

“Yeah, listen to the gremlin. You can be a self-sacrificing idiot later – but right now I need to you to lay still, while we save your life. Okay? Slade.”

“I’m on it.”

There was a needle piercing the skin above his aorta, and for a second Dick wanted to lash out… but then he recalled the voices of his loved ones surrounding him. Damian was here, Dick was pretty sure. He might even have heard Jason. And someone else… there was always someone else.

Dick welcomed the darkness – maybe the pain would finally stop.


End file.
